Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Genesis 9:13

Saturday, February 09, 2013

tomorrow

Tomorrow is going to be a big day. I can't remember if I've posted about this or not but i am going to be selling my house and moving to a single piece manufactured home (aka trailer) in the next year or less. Hopefully a lot less. This is important for a lot of reasons but the biggest is money. I can't afford my mortgage anymore. When my bills are paid and Dr. Mind I have something like $250 or $300 at most for gas, groceries, medications (some of which aren't cheap), and anything I need. I use Swagbucks to earn money for things like books, music, extra cash, and lately videos as well as clothing, etc. Moving should cut my expenses to give me a chance of making it through months without asking my mom for help and I will be able to buy my niece(s)/nephew (don't know yet. Another 8 weeks or so for that one. I certainly hope they tell Anne soon. I already gave it away to our aunt. And here. I'm not handling the secret well and I don't want to avoid Anne until I'm sure I don't say anything about it. I can't wait to take her to pick out some baby fabrics. I showed her what I have to make stuff for her this spring and she told me she wants pink. I only have one pink thing so I'm going to try to let her pick out something for herself. I have to do some sewing though. I've got one cut out but I've been so tired and tearful I've been afraid to try. Anyway, I got side-tracked but the point was supposed to be that tomorrow I'm going to look at homes. And that's certain to create plenty of mixed emotions which then leads to tears.

Grief has hit hard. I have had periods when I was grieving about the changes in my life but now it is different. Now is the time that I am being forced to face that first, it's been nearly 2 years. I was able to work in the spring of 2011 but I was in pain constantly and Medicare changed some things and it was all I could do to get done. It's a lot easier to think things can change when I'm referring to things as 6 months ago than 2 years. Leaving my house is another reminder. I bought it when I was 27. There were various reasons, I was making enough money, I hated renting and didn't do well in apartments because of my sensory issues. But mainly the hope was if I bought a house then I would have a greater chance of paying it off before this happened. Back then we had no real idea how things would go; I was just 6 months into treatment when I bought the house and all we knew was that I hopefully could be stabilized but I would not be likely to be all better on the meds available then. And now it's 10 years later, the market has changed and while I'm pretty sure I won't lose money on it I'm not certain I'll make anything either. The hope is that I'll make enough profit to pay for the manufactured home. There are so many reasons to move and yet it's really hard to deal with. The other thing that is a main cause of grief is that my OT license is up for renewal in June. I'm getting constant emails and snail mail advertisements for continuing education. I don't need that. Last year I learned about my options and we decided on a gradual giving up my license. All along I was telling myself that I'd be surprising everyone and scrambling to get those continuing ed hours because I was going to be well enough to not fully give up the license since I'd clearly be able to work a little bit soon. That was not true. It was protective but it wasn't true. In about 4 weeks I'll get the paperwork and the license will go into escrow between then and June. And it will simply hurt. It's also a tough time for my sister to be pregnant. I am absolutely thrilled but it is also painful. Of my cousins everyone's having a baby and I never will. I dealt with this with Anne but it's different now. Back then I knew if I was absolutely desperate to have a child I could try infertility treatment with donor sperm and maybe it would have happened. But as it stands it's impossible. So it's tricky.

Grief is weird. I haven't really had to grieve like this before. My grandparents are gone but one molested me, one I never met, one I might as well have never met; he never quite knew whether the bigger sister was Jen or (Anne's Mom). My grandma I was very close to but her death just wasn't sad. She lived so long past when the doctors said and that time is sacred in my memories. But she also made it so clear that death was coming and was wonderful and I certainly cried and missed her greatly (still do) but it was different. This is more like typical grief. Stupid things remind me and I cry for hours. Movies make me cry. Dropping things makes me cry. And then because my mood is mixed I turn around and have huge bursts of energy that I have to burn off. It's weird and if someone were watching it would be the definition of a mixed episode. I'm sure some of it also grief that I feel so helpless in terms of my antidepressants. At last contact with Dr. Brain she'd had no luck. Next week I'll go see her and know the details. And yet I'm pretty sure I know. She's amazing but getting a drug company to give away free medicine is a huge fight. And I keep thinking it's possible the new med may fix some of my always-symptomatic lately issues but the process is just dreadful.

Anyway, I need to sneak downstairs (I'm at my mom's) for water and try to get to sleep so I can handle this tomorrow.

On the really wonderful side I got home from counseling the other day and had an email from the woman who runs the organization where my baby hats go. She offered me a class in integrating grief and art. it's online and starts in April. It was amazing timing, just a bit after Dr. Mind told me that this is grieving.

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About Me

Over the years I have noticed that when I have the least hope a rainbow appears. Rainbows are a wonderful combination of beauty, hope, happiness and rain, the product of ugly grey clouds that hide the beauty of the sky. The beauty that is a rainbow can only come with the presence of both rain and sun. Such is life with bipolar disorder. There are good times, there are tough times, and there are rainbows to remind us that beauty will return, sometimes fleetingly and sometimes for a long time. This blog is my story of sadness and hope. Please scroll down to "Who I Am" under Pages to read more about me and the people who populate this blog.

In Case

Please note that any patient experiences noted in this blog are heavily edited to disguise events. Similarities to real persons are coincidental.

Please also know that while I speak as a professional at times, I am not a doctor. I have strong opinions, some based on professional training and/or experience, some based on research, and some based on personal experience of my own variety of this illness. Therefore what I say is my opinion, not a fact and doctors should always be consulted.